Comments on: Invasion of the Zombie Animals

By: nook

nook — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:16:33 +0000

Another human parasite: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_botfly

By: Calli Arcale

Calli Arcale — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 20:45:00 +0000

A parasite that influences human behavior for its own ends, eh? I’ve got one! The Guinea worm! This dreaded parasite starts its life inside of a copepod, where the eggs hatch and the larvae incubate. This is only a transitional host; humans are the real target. When a human drinks water containing the copepods, the copepods get digested and the larvae are freed. They migrate out of the digestive system and into the body cavity, where they mate. The females then migrate to the feet where they trigger a painful burning sensation in the feet. You literally feel as though your feet are on fire, which drives you to do the most natural thing possible in the circumstances — stick your feet into the water. That’s when the female erupts through the skin and starts laying her eggs into the water, starting the cycle over again. Every time you stick your feet into water, she’ll start laying.

Oh, and there’s no deworming agent that’ll kill it. The only treatment is to grab the protruding worm, wrap it around a stick so it can’t go back in, and then slowly extract it over the course of a month by gradually winding more of it onto the stick. This is excruciatingly painful.

Fortunately, some simple measures are on the verge of wiping this little bastard out. The tricky part is that it incubates for a long time, so you have to get everybody to cooperate for a couple of years to be sure of breaking the cycle. (Don’t stick blisters into public water supplies, in case there’s a worm inside. Never drink unfiltered water from a lake or river; rely on filters or groundwater.)

This may be the only animal that everyone is very happy to say is in the “critically endangered” list. ;-)

By: Manny

Manny — Wed, 13 May 2009 07:05:00 +0000

God certainly let his imagination go wild on the day of creation!

By: sam

sam — Wed, 13 May 2009 03:54:00 +0000

WHAT THE HELL. number 7 is weird….

By: Laurus Nobilis

Laurus Nobilis — Tue, 12 May 2009 17:20:00 +0000

It is obvious that aliens from the movie are not something new. These examples proves it.

By: holly

holly — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:26:00 +0000

Yeah, this article is very interesting.

The cracked one is just funny-i like the dick jokes:)

By: Jennings

Jennings — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:16:00 +0000

Miss C, I hope you don’t take that cracked reference as a slight of any kind. I really appreciate all the articles and links you post(here, neatorama, and your site). I think I’ve said it here before, but a lot of what I like about reading the _Floss is the comments and information from fellow readers. Even if some of the content is the same, reading it without the dick jokes is a much more pleasant experience. So Thank You =)

By: Fabius2245

Fabius2245 — Fri, 08 May 2009 14:23:00 +0000

That was actually really cool. Now excuse me for a moment while I hurl…

By: MedicDave

MedicDave — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:55:00 +0000

As a person who deals with bizarre situations on a daily basis at work, I found this interesting and also fascinating. Please continue to keep up the great posts…

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 07 May 2009 20:51:00 +0000

Hey Miss Cellania,
there is another zombie parasite (Dicroelium dentriticum or Lancet Liver Fluke) that infects ruminants, snails and zombiefies ants. Neither you nor the Cracked post covered it though it is a real sweetheart.
In an infected ant, several metacercariae hatch in the stomach, drill through the stomach wall, plug the holes behind them and then spread throughout the body. One of them sacrifices itself and becomes a brain parasite, controlling the ant.
During the day the infected ant acts normal but in the evening when the air cools, instead of returning home into the burrow it gets the urge to climb atop a plant and bite the tip in a cramp that lasts all night. The parasite wants the ant to be eaten by a sheep or cow. If the ant doesn’t get eaten, in the morning the cramp will loosen and the ant does a full working day until evening, when it becomes a zombie again…